This Ad-hoc Committee, which is synonym with the "White Elephant Club", showed also in 2009 a number of activities, in full accordance with its Terms of References. Some of the White Elephants met at the celebrations of the 75th Anniversary of the German Society for Photogrammetry in Jena (23-26 March 2009). Klaus Szangolies organized a meeting with Kennert Torlegard, Armin Gruen, Klaus-Peter Mark to commemorate an event which took place 20 years ago in Jena. At that time (shortly before the "change" in Germany) Zeiss Jena invited Kennert Torlegard and Armin Gruen for an official visit (Kennert was at that time ISPRS President, Armin acted as Commission V President) and both spend some memorable days there.

On 29 June many Members of the Ad-hoc Committee celebrated with Armin his Farewell Party at ETH in Zuerich. It was a beautiful summer day with lots of talks and a nice dinner over the roofs of Zuerich.

On 18-23 October ACRS took place in Beijing. Like always on these conferences lately (Ulan Baator, Mongolia, Colombo, Sri Lanka) White Elephant members (Gottfried, Armin, Shunji) gave their presentations on Proposal and Thesis/Paper Writing, and Presentation Techniques. Again this event had a very good turnout - the best for a single session probably at the whole conference.
This was followed by an invitation of the ISPRS Secretary General to a gorgeous Beijing restaurant on the evening of 21 October, where White Elephant Members had the opportunity to meet many young Chinese expatriates.

However, the biggest event took place in Wuhan, where Fritz Ackermann's 80th birthday was celebrated with a 1-day workshop on 25 October. Present were Orhan Altan, Gottfried Konecny, Clive Fraser, Li Deren, Ivan Antipov, Sherman Wu, Zhang Zuxun, Shunji Murai, Armin Gruen, and of course Fritz Ackermann himself - indeed a very good number.
This came one day after Wuhan University celebrated Prof. Wang Zhizou's 100th birthday with a huge and gorgeous party.
The program of the event is attached. Gottfried Konecny, Shunji Murai and Armin Gruen gave their presentations on academic "softskills", with the support of guestspeaker Jie Shan.

Armin Gruen, Chairman of the Committee

ISPRS White Elephant event, 25 October 2009, Wuhan, China:
Prof. Ackermann 80 years

9.00-9.30

Opening, welcome addresses, Chair: Li Deren

10.00-12.00

Technical Session, Chair: Gottfried Konecny
Stephen Briggs: ESA's earth observation programmes and climate change
Clive Fraser: Georeferencing of VHRS imagery
Armin Gruen: UAV Photogrammetry
Shunji Murai: Prediction of earthquakes with GPS

13.30-14.30

Technical visit LIESMARS

14.30-16.00

Fritz Ackermann 80 Years: A Life for Photogrammetry
Chair: Armin Gruen
Gottfried Konecny: Prof. Ackermann's contributions to photogrammetry
Li Deren: Learning from my teacher Prof. Ackermann
Fritz Ackermann: Some thoughts on the education of geodetic engineers

16.30-18.30

WE Session „Education", Chair: Li Deren
Gottfried Konecny: How to write a proposal
Shunji Murai: How to give presentations
Armin Gruen: How to write a thesis/paper
Jie Shan: How to work with editors and reviewers